Distracted from Vocation

One of the most frequent pieces of advice about how to improve your joy and satisfaction at work is to find your vocation—some version of do what you love or do what you’re uniquely suited to do.?

One notable exception comes from labor journalist Sarah Jaffe, who argues that “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” doesn’t add up. She writes in Work Won't Love You Back: “Instead of ‘never working,’ the reality is that we work longer hours than ever, and we’re expected to be available even when technically off the clock. All this creates stress, anxiety, and loneliness. The labor of love, in short, is a con.”

Regardless, there’s a lot of support for the notion that we’re healthier and happier when work is authentically enjoyable. For example, working on your passion mitigates the negative effects of being a workaholic on heart health (I previously wrote about that in this Monday Musing).

Somehow, even with the common wisdom to do what we love, many of us—including those of us who have a lot of choice in the matter—have jobs that look nothing like a vocation. This is partly because we get distracted.?

From an early age, people ask What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s an absurd question, but it plants the idea that our “be” is tied up in our work. And in a culture that affords status to those who have money, having a “good job” often creates value for us, even if it’s not authentically meaningful.?

Of course, caring what others think of us isn’t all bad. We’re evolved to live in groups. It’s just dangerous when overweighting the esteem of others traps our professional lives.

When we crave a promotion because of the status it’ll give us at work, or the likes we’ll get on LinkedIn when posting about it (“I’m humbled to announce…”), we may be stepping further away from our vocations.?

Or, when we fail to pursue a more personally rewarding opportunity because it’d be a shame to leave the “good” job that we have, we’re constructing a wall between ourselves and vocation.

As David Whyte writes in The Heart Aroused, “most of the actual prisons we inhabit we have chosen and furnished ourselves.”?

It often takes courage to ensure that our professional steps are authentically grounded. In the book The Purpose Path, Northwestern business professor Nicholas Pearce calls this “vocational courage.”?

He writes about vocational courage: “it’s not professional risk-seeking for its own sake. Vocational courage is about taking the risk that you cannot afford not to take in order to be able to look at yourself in the mirror with a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. [...] If vocation is in fact a gift to be received, then the courage is in making the difficult and often counterintuitive decisions that are necessary to align your daily work with your life’s work.”

In addition to his role as professor, Pearce is a pastor, so it’s no coincidence that he also sees this as a matter of faith. He writes, “Vocational courage ultimately comes down to two things: clarity plus commitment—clarity around what your life’s work is, and then a commitment to making whatever decisions are necessary to live it out faithfully.”

Thanks for reading!

Charles

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